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Kha'Zix
Build Guide by rumtag

This build has been archived and is for historical display only.

PLEASE NOTE: This build has been archived by the author. They are no longer supporting nor updating this build and it may have become outdated. As such, voting and commenting have been disabled and it no longer appears in regular search results.

Not Updated For Current Season

This guide has not yet been updated for the current season. Please keep this in mind while reading. You can see the most recently updated guides on the browse guides page.

Masteries

Offense:
21

Defense:
0

Utility:
9

About Kha'Zix

The most recent entry into the LoL Champions roster, Kha'Zix has a lot to boast. He's a jungler that is very versatile, serving virtually any role required on the team of a jungler. His skills and potential each game make him a TON of fun to play, and I hope you guys try him out and enjoy him like I do.

This build focuses mostly on being a tanky damage dealer for your team. It will offer you a ton of mobility in teamfights and allow you to be an asset for your team throughout the whole game.

Here are the pros and the cons for this build:

PRO

Very fast jungle

Lots of damage

Very sustainable late game

Good at counter-jungling

Super fun to play

CON

No hard CC

Fairly weak ultimate

Squishier early game

Not an initiator*

*Lots of players expect several things from a jungler. One of those things that is more subconscious is that the jungler needs to be a good initiator for a team fight. Kha'Zix is not one of those junglers. Make sure that if you choose Kha in a match, that you have other great initiators like a support Alistar, a Malphite top, or Varus for his ult. Other than that, the cons rest entirely with you and you alone.

Masteries

For masteries, I like to run 21/0/9. The offensive masteries are aimed at 2 main things. Increasing your armor penetration through Sunder and Weapon Expertise , and increasing your damage to minions with Butcher and, well, everything else. You're a jungler, so the more damage you do to monsters and minions, the faster you clear jungle, and the more time you can spend in lane.

The Utility masteries are also rather straightforward. As Kha'Zix, having such low cooldowns, you're going to be spending a decent amount of mana. The Expanded Mind mana regen masteries as well as the Runic Affinity jungle buff duration increase help you keep your mana and cooldowns at a very comfortable, sustainable level.

This build doesn't include the point in Summoner's Resolve for the gold buff on Smite and the main reason is because if you have to make a trade-off between keeping your mana sustained or earning an extra 10 gold every minute or so, you'll find that the mana and buff duration increase are worth it every time.

Runes

Greater Mark of DesolationArmor penetration marks are pretty standard and shouldn't be a surprise.

More armor in the jungle means less damage taken before ganking. With the build that I run I typically have 90% health for my first gank and a full Health Potion ready just in case. It's all thanks to these guys.

As you and your enemies gain levels, you won't have time or gold to spend buying magic resistance items, because you should just be focusing on health and damage to take out the enemy's carries. These glyphs provide scaling protection against just such magic damage.

I've found that Kha has a pretty low base attack damage for a jungler, and not taking extra damage on him can be extremely dangerous and cost him early game as well as the match. Using these damage Quints provides the opposite to happen. You'll do tons of damage very early and that will help you get kills and snowball to victory.

Summoner Skills

+

Running these two skills on Kha'Zix is important for some pretty obvious reasons.

As for Exhaust, you need this because Kha lacks an inherent, decent form of CC that a lot of other junglers benefit from. Granted, this means you'll only have 1 really good gank every 2 minutes or so, but your teammates should have some kind of stun or snare or knockup to help you out a bit. Plus, your damage is great.

Flash isn't going to do you a whole lot of good, and you really don't need it with your Leap skill doing just as good a job on a lower cooldown. Ghost is also less useful, because although you can keep up, the enemy will just get to his tower faster, and you won't get the really nice 10 armor debuff thanks to Summoner's Wrath . Ignite might also seem like a decent choice, but there's a very good chance that at least 2 other teammates are running Ignite and your team will need an Exhaust or two for teamfights later in the match.

Skills

Unseen Threat

This is an interesting passive. Whenever the entire enemy team loses sight of you, you gain a buff to your next auto attack. This buff doesn't have a timer, which is its real redeeming quality. The slow will help solidify your ganks and the damage is nice to help chunk away at the enemy's health before they can really make an escape. Sometimes, you can use this skill after getting into a small skirmish. Watch the enemies on your minimap and keep your position in mind. If the enemy disappears but you don't get your Unseen Threat buff back, the area where you are standing is either within range of a ward, or an enemy is hiding and about to kill you. Pretty useful.

Taste Their Fear

This skill is the one you want to take at level 1 and max as quickly as possible, because it will skyrocket your normal damage output. When in the jungle, you want to constantly use this skill. It resets your attack animation, so make sure you activate the skill immediately after you auto attack a creep. What makes this skill so amazing is that when you gank top or mid, there is a 90% chance they will always be "isolated," and will thus receive the giant nuke damage, as opposed to the smaller damage shown in the tooltip. Bot can easily become isolated provided your botlane has the right CC, but even if you don't, it still gives you lots of damage output.

Void Spike

Kha'Zix's W skill gives him a decent bit of sustain in the jungle, but more importantly provides him with some AoE damage. Many Kha players see the heal and AoE damage and think "wow, this should be the one I grab at level 1 and max as quickly as I can!", but this is dangerous. Taking a look at the damage plus cooldowns plus mana cost, and you can see why some players complain about Kha's manapool. The heal is decent, and the damage and range are very nice, but maxing this skill second, namely, AFTER Taste Their Fear will be much more beneficial in the long run. The best way to use this skill is obviously in close-range when in a fight with an enemy, or near max distance to pick up a kill. In the jungle, stand as close as possible to the creeps and fire after you've begun fighting them so you can get the heal.

Leap

By itself, Leap is probably one of the weaker skills in Kha's kit and doesn't give him very much damage, but the mobility and terrain jumps it provides are quite nice. You will do a decent amount of damage when you land, but the main idea with this skill is to catch up to the enemy. I've found the best way to use this skill is not to begin a gank, but rather to get to the enemy after they have flashed or used some kind of escape skill. being able to anticipate where they will flash or whatever will help you be in range to land an auto attack with your Unseen Threat buff, and hopefully give you a successful gank even though the enemy used a summoner's! The next gank should be much easier without it, however.

Void Assault

Void Assault, Kha's ultimate, is a big strange. It grants Kha'Zix brief invisibility, a movespeed buff, and gives Kha'Zix Unseen Threat. You might think "Well if he's invisible, shouldn't he get Unseen Threat anyway?" The answer is no. If the enemy has an Oracle's Elixir or if there is a Vision Ward nearby, then you wouldn't be out of the enemy's sight, and therefore would not gain the passive buff. Activating this skill gives it to you regardless. This skill can be activated twice in a relatively short span of time. It's very good for closing gaps or running and juking, but it won't really increase your damage all that much until later levels when the damage for Unseen Threat scales upward.

Another unique aspect to putting skill points into Void Assault is that you also get to evolve one of your skills. These evolutions are permanent and cannot be changed in the match. One of your skills will be unevolved by the end of the game, and that's alright. Keep in mind that evolving any skill has an animation timer, so the moment you choose to evolve a skill, Kha'Zix will stand still until the animation is complete. Don't get excited if you level up and put a point into your ult in the middle of a fight or important situation. Wait until the timing is appropriate.

Evolve Englarged Claws

improves Kha's bonus damage to isolated units and also increases his base attack and Taste Their Fear range. Nice.

Evolve Spike Racks

changes your Void Spike's single spike into a 3-pronged cone of spike missiles that explode and do very nice AoE damage. As an added bonus to the skill, using an evolved Void Spike with Unseen Threat will apply that bonus damage and slow to all units hit. Nice.

Evolve Wings

increases the range of your Leap and also refreshes the cooldown for the skill on every kill or assist. Evolving this skill means tons more mobility and chasing power, plus the decent damage from the AoE where you land. Nice.

Evolve Active Camouflage

allows Kha to activate Void Assault 3 times as opposed to the normal 3 and also gives him a very decent damage reduction while stealthed. Nice.

With all of these great choices, what shall we do?

EVOLUTION

Choosing which skills to evolve and when can be, at first, a bit challenging. Let's break down my choices in this build.

At Level 6, Evolve Enlarged Claws

At Level 11, Evolve Wings

At Level 16, Evolve Spike Racks

Why do we want to buff our skills in this particular order? It's actually extremely simple to think about. Because Kha'Zix is going to be jungler in this instance, let's think about how he will be encountering enemies:

At first, he'll be ganking, or going in with the numbers on his side. In this situation, having better damage with Taste Their Fear means that a kill is more likely to be secured, especially considering his skills don't really provide much CC and that you will only need to use Leap once on almost any enemy champion.

After that, toward mid-game, you'll notice that you will be taking on multiple enemies but not really getting into full 5v5 teamfight action. In this situation, enemy players are probably still a bit hesitant to get fully invested in a fight, and may try to run. Picking off players 1 by 1 as they try to run through the jungle or lane will continue refreshing your improved Leap allowing you to keep up or outpace the enemy and deal extremely nice damage with your improved Taste Their Fear while they are isolated. Just be careful not to get ambushed.

Finally, when you have reached late game and 5v5 teamfights are happening, you now have the mobility to enter and leave the teamfight as you need to to do your damage or protect your carry, thanks to your evolved wings. Now, having a much larger range on your Void Spike means nuking as many enemies as possible once they have clumped together. It will also provide you with an insane poke while both teams are waiting/trying for an initiation! (It's also great to use this improved skill to check an entire length of brush for enemies, as there is a specific animation/sound for when it hits an enemy)

So, why not Evolve Active Camouflage?

To put it simply, while 3 seconds of reduced damage is very nice, they are 3 divided seconds, and not 3 continuous seconds. Also, the damage and mobility you will be provided are, to be sure, very fancy and nice, but also easily provided by evolving your other 3 basic skills. In addition, because this is an offtank build focusing on taking some damage, you want to actually take damage and not disappear from the enemy's radar so that they can focus your carries harder.

Items

Starting Items

+x5

Then Build

A Note about Boots

This guide lists Mercury's Treads for items, but don't take this as sacred. If the enemy team is AD/autoattacker-heavy, then get Ninja Tabi instead. If the enemy team has a champion like Janna or you otherwise feel slow compared to the enemy team, get Boots of Swiftness. Basically, as long as you are building Tier 2 boots that aren't Sorcerer's Shoes or Ionion Boots of Lucidity then you should be fine, so long as you feel they suit your needs for the match.

Start building your core

Complete your core

Why do we choose these items?

Armor penetration is Kha's best friend. As soon as you finish your Wriggle's Lantern, you want a Brutalizer for pen and damage. You'll notice a difference as soon as you grab it.

The next item is once again situational. Normally I like to compliment the shoes that I bought. If I went with Mercury's Treads, then I like to grab the Phage for the health. The magic resistance from the shoes will improve durability along with the health to take an extra auto or 3. If I grabbed Ninja Tabi, then I like to grab Hexdrinker next. Should spells really start hurting, then I've got a nice shield just in case I need it.

Although, if the enemy is running a VERY AP-heavy team, it is never a bad decision to pair Merc's with Hexdrinker. Likewise on an extremely AD-heavy team, Tabi and Phage should work well.

Obbviously, once we grab these items, we want to keep them and upgrade them. Everything in this part of the game is up to you. Do you want the slow from Frozen Mallet first? Go for it.

Do you want to out DPS the enemy? Finish Ghostblade.

Get a luxury item!

Mostly, you'll find that with your luxury items, going tankier is better than anything else. Randiun's Omen is a great choice. If you're jumping into a teamfight and focusing the carry, you'll likely take some of their damage, thereby reducing their DPS as a punishment to them. Thornmail is decent in certain situations (auto attack-heavy teams). Guardian Angel is nice if you want that, and Sunfire Cape is good for the armor and extra health. The damage aspect might not really add much to your kit. The Bloodthirster is a more-than-decent option if you start to realize that your team isn't doing the damage it needs to to win teamfights. Tiamat was seriously a joke, please don't build it, omg.

Jungle Path

1. Blue

2. Wolves

3. Wraiths

4. Red

5. Gank

(This order actually provides a much earlier gank at level 3, although some players will say that perhaps Wolves > Blue > Wraiths > Golems > Red will provide better gold and experience. Maybe so, but earlier ganks are much better for Kha.)

If all of the lanes are pushed and I can't gank, I either go back to Wolves, or, if I notice the enemy jungler is ganking, I will assist lanes or (assuming my teammates are doing just fine) go and counter jungle.

Closing Remarks

This build guide is just a demonstration of how I play Kha and how I've had the most success and fun with him. I hope you try this out and do some experimenting of your own. Upvote if you try this build and enjoy it. Have fun playing The Voidreaver!

League of Legends is a team based, real time strategy game set in a mythical world of swords & magic where epic battles decide the fate of mystical nations. Game players take on the role of a Summoner who conjures and controls champions to fight for them at the Institute of War. During game play champions gain experience and items to enhance their skills and abilities. How players develop and play their champions can be the difference between a crushing defeat or a glorious victory!